Shane’s Rock Challenge: THE STONE ROSES – 1989 – The Stone Roses

Shane | 4 July 2014 | Reply

Shane’s Rock Challenge: THE STONE ROSES – 1989 – The Stone Roses
By Shane Pinnegar
10/10

An album of great influence, The Stone Roses’ debut is widely considered to have inspired the 90s Britpop movement, as well as being voted one of the most influential albums of all time by various (usually British) publications and polls.

Taking a swipe at psychedelic rock and sixties pop with all the swagger and stagger of the Ecstasy-laden rave clique of the time, the band – Ian Brown, John Squire, Mani & Reni – managed to define their moment in time whilst standing outside of it, something very few artists of any nature can attest to.

Opener I Wanna Be Adored may as well be the blueprint for Liam Gallagher’s stance in Oasis a few years later – it’s bare faced arrogance and narcissism redefining youth’s sense of entitlement in four minutes and fifty three seconds. She Bangs The Drums and Waterfall are supremely uplifting and sparkle with a timeless quality that make them hard to tire of, even after multiple consecutive listens. Bye Bye Badman – also the title of John Squire’s cover artwork, which was inspired artistically by Jackson Pollock, and thematically by a Frenchman who gave him a lift while hitchhiking in France, and told him of participating in the May 1968 Paris riots – is another understated gem, and album closers This Is The One and I Am The Resurrection are as close to perfect as a couple of rock songs can get.

After it started selling like hotcakes future pressings would include Fools Gold, previously only available as a non-album single, and that’s another bullseye of a tune which went a fair way to defining themselves and the dance-rock culture they were a large, founding part of.

It was all too much for them, sadly, and they would spend years (and millions of squids) unsuccessfully trying to make a worthy follow-up – but more on that another time.